[Peace-discuss] Important Revelations - Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed, then UN Hide Interview Transcript

[Charles Jenks]

Greetings - 

The other shoe has dropped.  The US Administration's favorite witness
against the Iraq regime - Gen. Hussein Kamel (Saddam's son-in-law) - had
told UNSCOM that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.  UNSCOM
then hid the interview transcript, classifying it as 'sensitive.'  While his
testimony on the extent of the WMD programs was revealed, his statements
that these weapons were destroyed was kept secret - until now.

The Administration has used the partial release of information to great
effect.  It convinced Congress to pass a war resolution, and the UN to pass
another resolution that warned of 'serious consequences.'

 As described by Glen Rangwala, Iraq analyst and lecturer in politics at
Cambridge University:

*    Prime Minister Tony Blair in his statement to the House of Commons on
25 February 2003, said: "It was only four years later after the defection of
Saddam's son-in-law to Jordan, that the offensive biological weapons and the
full extent of the nuclear programme were discovered."


*    President Bush declared in a 7 October 2002 speech: "In 1995, after
several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military
industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced to admit that it
had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological
agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq had likely produced two
to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons
that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions."


*    Colin Powell's 5 February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council
claimed: "It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four
tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will
kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after inspectors
collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal,
Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law."

*    In a speech on 26 August 2002, Vice-President Dick Cheney said Kamel's
story "should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the
result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself".

As reported by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) Newsweek broke the
story but buried it in its "Periscope" section under a bland headline.
"CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek report. 'It is
incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue,' Harlow told Reuters (2/24/03) the day the
report appeared." 

The situation may have remained confused, but then "[On] (2/26/03), a
complete copy of the Kamel transcript-- an internal UNSCOM/IAEA document
stamped "sensitive"-- was obtained by Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge
University analyst who in early February revealed that Tony Blair's
"intelligence dossier" was plagiarized from a student thesis." (see
http://traprockpeace.org/britishdossier.html for more on the fake dossier
story). (quoting FAIR)

The entire Kamel  transcript can be seen at
http://www.casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf

Dr. Rangwala's briefing on this affair is found at
http://traprockpeace.org/kamel.html
and at the UK site at http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html

FAIR's Media Advisory is found at
http://www.fair.org/press-releases/kamel.html

Traprock Peace Center has been working with Dr. Glen Rangwala since the
summer, having published in the US the "Counter-Dossier" (co-written with
Alan Simpson, MP, in opposition to Tony Blair's dossier against Iraq),
"Counter-Dossier II" - a comprehensive review of claims concerning Iraq's
proscribed weapons; Response to Colin Powell's Presentation to the UN; and
an analysis that contrasts the Blix/ElBaradei reports with the Powell
presentation.  Each of these papers are featured on the Traprock homepage at
http://traprockpeace.org

Charles Jenks
President, 
Traprock Peace Center - http://traprockpeace.org
charles at mtdata.com